Intracranial electrophysiological recording and stimulation coupled with individualized functional imaging for causal mapping of human limbic network

The limbic network (LN) is involved in functions ranging from sensory and affective to cognitive processes. Dysfunctions in the human LN is at the core of neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and addiction.

While there is a great clinical need for precise neuromodulation of the LN for neuropsychiatric disorders, the development of next-generation neuromodulation therapies is hampered by lack of knowledge about the spatio-temporal dynamics of this network with high temporal resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio, and individual anatomical specificity.

This highlights the urgency of studying the LN using a multi-modal approach.

The aim of this project is to provide individual functional and casual connectivity map of the human LN using unique state-of-the-art multi-modal intracranial electrophysiological recordings and intracranial direct electrical stimulation (iES) coupled with high resolution functional MRI.

This individual-specific casual mapping will provide unique and hitherto missing information required for developing more realistic computational models that are necessary for novel neuromodulation.

My host lab at Stanford University leading by Professor Josef Parvizi MD PHD has two decades of experience in brain casual mapping and neuromodulation.

By accomplishing this project, I hope that I can bring the knowledge back to Sweden considering that in Sweden the human intracranial recordings are used only in the clinic and next to none in research.